


i think you’re my best friend

by Anonymous



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Flash Thompson Needs a Hug, Gay Flash Thompson, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Romantic Friendship, based on the what if comic but altered, canonically peter has called flash his best friend this is very important to me, vaguely set around early college era but no mention of the rest of the spidey fivesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23129536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In a different universe, Flash Thompson is Captain Spider and Peter Parker is a photographer for the Daily Bugle. In which Flash’s story having an unhappy ending is not a universal constant.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Flash Thompson, Peter Parker/Flash Thompson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 57
Collections: Anonymous





	i think you’re my best friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gleesquid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleesquid/gifts).



Flash opened his eyes, crusted with dirt and blood, and waited for the fuzziness in his vision to subside. He tried to survey his surroundings, but it was nighttime and the faint city lights barely had an impact on the all-encompassing darkness. There was a gash on his jaw, sluggishly dripping onto the asphalt underneath him, forming a copper-scented puddle on the ground. At least I’m not crying, he thought; men don’t cry. He might be beaten up and aching and embarrassed, but at least he was still a man. He tried to get up, but found that his limbs wouldn’t cooperate with him; his head was heavy with exhaustion. “Just five minutes,” he promised himself, and let his head drop onto the pavement, curling up into as small of a ball as a six foot tall star quarterback wearing red and blue spandex could. A tall, lanky boy carrying a camera like an extension of a limb hurried through the alleyway next to his apartment building. He was absorbed in thought and didn’t notice the person in the alleyway until he tripped over him. The person groaned and Peter stared in horror.

“Captain Spider?” he asked, disbelieving.

“Huh? Oh yeah, that’s me,” the spandex-outfitted man replied woozily.

“What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” Peter said, the asshole charm that had prompted Flash to give him way too many swirlies at Midtown High firmly in place.

“Losing consciousness, probably,” Captain Spider responded.

“Well, I can’t just leave you here. Can you make it up to that fire escape, bud, and I’ll let you in? My Aunt May’s a nurse, she’ll know what to do.”

Flash shuddered. “No family. _Please_ no family. ‘ve got a secret ‘dentity, Dad would be so mad if he found out. So mad…” he trailed off.

“Alright, alright, I get it, no Aunt May. Still, you should come to my room. I can at least do _something_ , like give you a Band-Aid or whatever.” Peter reached his hand out to Captain Spider, who took it and stood up, wobbling. In a flash, he had clambered up the side of the building to the fire escape Peter pointed at, while Peter stared and ran calculations in his head as to how that was even possible.

Once Peter was in his apartment, he opened his bedroom window to let the very bedraggled wall-crawler in and grabbed some ethyl alcohol and bandages from the bathroom cabinet.

“Alright, shirt off, now,” Peter ordered. 

“Excuse me?”

“In the interest of not having you bleed to death on my bedroom floor, I’m gonna have to patch you up.”

Flash reluctantly removed the spandex shirt, revealing a muscled torso that Peter only briefly gaped at before remembering that the guy needed medical attention.

“The pants and the mask stay on, though,” he insisted.

“Of course. I wouldn’t dream of divesting you of your pants until the third date.” Flash wisely chose to ignore this comment and focused instead on the stinging pain as Peter dabbed ethyl alcohol onto his jaw. Flash hissed slightly and clenched his fists, but didn’t show any other signs of pain. Peter’s face was very close to his, his brown eyes warm and compassionate, face etched with concern for the masked “hero” he’d found in the alleyway. Flash felt a sudden stab of remorse for all the times he’d bullied him at Midtown. Parker was one of the good guys; not many other people would’ve offered to let him into their home. Captain Spider made people uncomfortable, he knew that. He hit his foes a little bit too hard, his image was inseparable from violence. That nutter at the Daily Bugle loved him, though.

He was distracted from his train of thought when Peter asked him, “So what the hell happened to you?”

“Did you know Doc Ock’s got four of those arm-tentacle-thingys? And they’re all made of metal?”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” 

“You look like shit,” Peter said, not unkindly. “You should lie down for a while.” 

Flash gratefully took the proffered spot on the bed, and was too tired to even think about complaining when Peter slipped under the covers next to him a couple minutes later, saying, “Sorry dude, but I’m not taking the couch.” Besides, Peter’s body heat was surprisingly comforting. 

Flash slipped out the next morning before Peter woke up, leaving just a note that said “Thanks.”

And if the next time Flash was fighting the assorted bad guy of the week, he gave a grin and a wink to the tall skinny guy freelancing for the Bugle, well, who could blame him? 

Flash’s spider-enhanced senses made him extra perceptive, so even when he thought he was using all of his concentration on fighting a villain, he couldn’t help but notice Peter’s disapproval when he ended up seriously injuring a bad guy, as he so often did. It wasn’t that he wanted Peter’s approval (he did), but maybe he just liked the way Peter smiled when he thought Captain Spider had done a good job. JJJ _really_ wasn’t a fan of his turn for the nicer and ran a series of articles with headlines like “Captain Spider Goes Soft?” accompanied by photos taken by P. Parker, who seemed to be the only photographer able to take good pictures of Captain Spider. 

“You can come see me any time, you know that, right?” Peter whispered discreetly as Captain Spider limped away from a particularly difficult fight. Flash didn’t respond, though he seemed to be able to walk a little easier as he departed.  
  


* * *

“You know Captain Spider’s a really dumb name, don’t you?” Peter said, his legs swinging as he sat on the edge of the roof.

“Yeah? You got something better, hot-shot?” Flash teased, and Peter pretended to think about it for a couple seconds.

“Nope. Guess you’re stuck with that!”

Flash reached over to jokingly ruffle Peter’s hair, but Peter reflexively grabbed his hand, and then they were holding hands. Sort of. And it was really, really nice. Flash felt soft and warm, like his heart was made of jelly. He would do anything to make that feeling last. 

“Hey, Parker,” he said softly, pulling his mask off with his unoccupied hand.

“You know I’m smart, right? I’ve known who you were for months; I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Peter said, hiding his smile.

Neither of them wanted to be the one to end the moment so they just sat there, holding hands as the sun set over the city skyline.

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, Flash learned how to be gentle and he taught a symbiote how to love and he cares so deeply about people that I have cannot believing there isn’t a universe where he becomes Spider-Man and uses his powers for good. PeterFlash 2020!!


End file.
